


Coda: Hope

by ProcioneRenaissanceArcana (wanderlustnostalgia)



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ten Years Later (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Tragedy, Bittersweet, Bittersweet Ending, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Ficlet, Future Fic, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Past Character Death, Sad, Sad boi hours, Ten Years Later Arc (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), Ten Years Later Verse (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), Twenty Years Later, Varia Arc (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), listen...i love them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:22:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26575948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderlustnostalgia/pseuds/ProcioneRenaissanceArcana
Summary: While adult Lambo battles Levi for the Lightning Ring, teenage Lambo encounters I-Pin in the future.
Relationships: Lambo Bovino & I-Pin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	Coda: Hope

**Author's Note:**

> I AM SO SORRY.
> 
> Largely inspired by [this](https://geallsparrow.tumblr.com/post/618507738598785024/the-physics-sorta-of-lambos-time-there-are-5) post, plus the fact that I'm a huge I-Pin stan and we were super robbed of her and Lambo's dynamic (and also I want to believe that Lambo wasn't completely alone twenty years later). Expect more of these two to come! (Hopefully with less angst, haha.)

It happened faster than I-Pin could blink.

One minute, Lambo was standing by the door, polishing his horns; when the smoke cleared, he was on the floor—ten years younger, and bawling like a baby.

I-Pin couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him cry.

“Lambo?”

Teenage Lambo sniffled, wiped the tears from his eyes, then looked around at his surroundings, at their messy and splintered excuse for a shack. “My, what a mess,” he murmured. Then his eyes landed on I-Pin, staring dumbfounded at him with a half-assembled shotgun in her arms. “Well, well. Is that you, I-Pin? You look old.”

The bazooka, I-Pin realized. This Lambo had summoned hers, back to a time where it actually worked. She thought back to when they were kids, chasing each other around Mama’s kitchen, playing house with Haru and Kyoko, oblivious of all to come. It felt like a lifetime ago.

How could they have known?

“I’m not that old,” she said, finding her voice again. (It sounded an awful lot like Bianchi’s.) “I’m twenty-five.”

“Well,” said Lambo, “you seem very tired for a twenty-five-year-old.” He yawned, his tears thoroughly dried. “What is this place, anyway? And where is everyone?”

“They’re…” I-Pin swallowed, unwilling to form the words. What timeline had this Lambo come from? Certainly not one Byakuran had corrupted, or she’d recognize the torment in his eyes. “Gone,” she said finally. “They’re gone. Have been for a while, actually.”

“Oh,” said Lambo. No, no torment. Just green, startlingly bright. “But they’re coming back, right?”

He had no idea.

God, he had no idea.

“Right?” Lambo faltered. “They can’t be gone forever…can they?”

Slowly, I-Pin shook her head.

The color drained from Lambo’s face. “I see.” He seemed to shrink before her, folding in on himself like a child’s clumsy origami. (Had this Lambo kept the cranes she’d made him, all those years ago?) “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” he said, looking at the floor. “When I look at you, it feels like a long time. And yet…I still want to play with you.” He looked up at her again, eyes glassy. “We were always together back then, weren’t we? And if I’m here now…then we must be together here, too.” His eyes swept over the room again, searching. “I wonder what happened…”

I-Pin, too, had questions. But before she could ask him, about what had happened between her and Lambo in this other universe, there was another puff of smoke, and then the current Lambo— _her_ Lambo—was standing before her again, scraped-up, disheveled, and partially-charred.

“Goodness,” he said, wiping the sweat from his brow. “That was quite a trip. It’s a shame I couldn’t have stayed longer. I was winning, too.”

“Winning?” I-Pin asked.

“A fight,” Lambo said. “On the Namimori rooftop.”

I-Pin set the shotgun down on the desk. “So you went ten years into the past?”

“Not ten. Twenty.” He smiled, though his eyes were sad. “I saw them, I-Pin.”

A rush of emotions, of longing, flooded I-Pin’s memory, too much for her to process at once. “Everyone?”

“Not everyone,” Lambo said. “But I saw Tsuna-nii, and the Guardians, and Reborn, and they were so young, I-Pin.” A single tear fell from his eye. “They were beautiful.”

I-Pin broke.

She crumpled, sinking to her knees on the floor, and wept. In seconds, Lambo’s arms were around her, firm and strong, grounding her.

“Oh, I-Pin-chan,” he murmured. He held her tight, smelling of smoke and sweat and sugar, and she cried. “I know. I know.”

What must it have been like, she wondered, to see all those faces? To revisit a time before Byakuran, when the world was whole, when the Arcobaleno lived, when the Vongola was untouchable? When they had their family?

“I wish you could’ve seen them,” Lambo said. He reached up to stroke her hair, humming thoughtfully. “They were so fierce, so brave. They looked like they could take on anything.”

“Not fair,” I-Pin choked out, muffled against Lambo’s chest. “It’s not fair.”

“I know.” His thumb skimmed the wet surface of her cheek. “But you know what I think?”

I-Pin sniffled.

“I think they could do it.”

I-Pin looked up at him, bewildered. Lambo’s eyes, though solemn, were determined, held a fire she hadn’t seen in a long time. “You…” she whispered. “You don’t think they could…”

“I do,” said Lambo. “I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s like…for the first time, since everything happened, I have hope. I can feel it, burning inside me. I want to hold onto it.”

I-Pin drew in a breath, shaky. She thought of the version of Lambo who’d appeared before her, the bright-eyed teenager with so much ahead of him, whose gaze wasn’t haunted, whose past and present looked very different from theirs.

It was possible, wasn’t it?

It had to be.

And even if it wasn’t, Lambo believed it. These days, that was enough.

“So hold onto it,” I-Pin said. She reached up to take his hand, entwining their fingers. “And I’ll hold on with you.”

Together.

Always.

Smiling, Lambo squeezed her hand. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

**Author's Note:**

> This hurt to write, wow.
> 
> On a lighter note, my self-indulgent fancast for adult!I-Pin is [Yeh Shuhua](https://i.redd.it/pcwho5cp8js21.jpg) from (G)I-DLE.


End file.
